Friends in High Places
by Sophisticated.Simplicity
Summary: Derek Shepard has more than a few issues, what with all of the hubaloo going on in his life. So he does what any other normal person with issues would do. He talks to a therapist.
1. Ye of Little Faith

_**Friends in High Places**_

**Rated: T for swearing**

Pippin Bardsley thought she had seen everything there was to see in the world of therapy. From whackos to sickos to parents who named their daughter 'Pippin'-, she'd had them all, so when an appointment was set up with a famous neurosurgeon from Seattle Grace, she figured there was nothing that could be really wrong with him. Depression, maybe? Yes, Pip assumed, that's usually what's the matter with doctors. She'd do what she always did with mild cases- doodle on a legal pad for an hour and then send him away with a business card and prescriptions for enough Prozac to kill a horse. Worked every time.

Pippin was setting up tea on her garden patio (She always had low-risk patients at her house. Offices were just a bit too stuffy to occupy constantly) when Derek Shepard opened the ivy lined gate, dressed in his Sunday best.

_Cute. _She thought, before putting on her best professional smile and setting the kettle down. "Good afternoon, you must be Dr. Shepard." pleasant, smooth, detached.

"Please, call me Derek."

"Derek it is, then. I'm doctor Pippin Bardsly- tea?" Pip motioned to the table, pouring them both a cup when he accepted the offer. "Now, Derek, let's begin." She took a leather breifcase from under the chair, opening the snaps and pulling out a pen and legal pad before setting the object back on the ground. Derek sipped his tea as she found a clean page and scribbled _Patient: Derek Anthony Shepard _at the top. "Why not start with telling me why you're here today?"

"Well," He paused "relationship problems, mostly."

"Oh?" How could a man _that _hot have any relationship problems? That girl must be off her damn rocker- or that guy. "Can you elaborate?"

"Well, it kind of began when I caught my wife cheating on me with my best friend. I ran away to, uh, here, and before I started my job at Seattle Grace I had this one night stand with a girl. Only, the next day it turns out that she's an intern at the hospital I'm working at..."

Pippin had to keep her jaw from going slack as she listened to what could have been a synopsis for the big season finale of one of those cheesy hospital dramas her mother loved so much. To conceal her surprised posture and keep the facade of collected professional, she assumed a pose reminiscent of Thinking Man- elbow on table, index finger over upper lip and thumb on chin, seated diagonally with over arm slung across back of chair and legs crossed.

"...so then I got kind of trapped and slept with her younger half sister, who also happens to be working as an intern at the hospital..."

"Oh, uh...dear me..." Pippin stuck her tongue in cheek as she nodded along, looking down at the notes she'd written in the past twenty minutes, which consisted of a sketch of Mickey Mouse in scrubs and _CALL JERRY SPRINGER!!! _Underlined five times.

"...and so now I'm in love, living with the dream of getting married, building a house and having kids and she's just wanting to have a friends with benefits thing, y'know?"

"Well, Derek, that's, er...quite the story." _M O T H E R F U C K E R ! _She scribbled, still trying to look professional. "But I'm not sure how I can help you, I'm used to dealing with..." _people who just need a buttload of Zoloft or Prozac and a good night's rest. _"...other sorts of cases. Unless you wanted to bring this, er," She looked down at the few legitimate notes she'd actually written "Mary to one of your sessions, of course."

Derek put down his tea cup " If I told her about this, She'd laugh at me and then beat me over the head with a medical textbook for bringing somebody else into this. Years later CrimeTV will do an expose about how they found my body stuffed in the trashcan of pediatrics and how she sanded off her fingerprints, changed her name, and then became a stripper in Las Vegas. Izzie and George and Christina will have to go into witness protection..."

"So, that's a no then?"

"er, yes."

"I see. Well, Derek, I'm afraid that our time here is up. You can schedule a follow up appointment with Christie over the phone." Pip stood abruptly "I...look forward to seeing you next week."

"Thanks. I guess." He shrugged and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, "It was good tea." and with that, Derek Shepard walked down the cobblestone path to the gate, closing the door quietly behind him.

"Suddenly, I cannot fight the urge to watch reruns of _General Hospital._" She said in mock surprise, putting her things back into her suitcase and returning to the house.


	2. The Muffin Man's Sinister Truth

_**Friends in High Places**_

_**Chapter 2: The Muffin Man's Sinister Truth **_

Derek Shepard's next appointment fell on the same day the next week, which gave Pippin time to prepare. The uncharacteristic warm winter weather had ended and now temperatures in Seattle were in the thirties, making Garden Sit Outs inadvisable. Thus, she set about the task of making her trashpit of a kitchen as homely as possible, lighting a fire in the adjacent living room and preparing coffee (a shot of bourbon in hers, as unorthodox as it may have been).

When he arrived early in the morning, (her first appointment of the day, eight-thirty sharp) Derek had a plate of muffins to go with the coffee. He claimed his friend-with-benefits lived with a girl who must've had a previous affair with the muffin man she was so great at baking. Pip thanked him and set everything out on the previously cluttered cardtable she used as a kitchen surface. Her legal pad and pen were already set out and ready to be used.

"So, Derek." She began, clicking the top of her pen "Let's start this session by talking a little about your family. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Younger sister named Bo, and older fraternal twins Jenna and Joel."

"And how did you get along with your parents?"

"Er..." He wrinkled his nose and took a thoughtful bite of muffin, chewing slowly as he mulled the question. "...It was okay, I guess. Well, my dad and mom divorced when I was in college, but during my childhood they were perfectly civil."

"Was there any reason for the split?"

"He cheated on her with who he thought was a woman."

"'Thought?'"

"It was really a very drunk man wearing a bra stuffed with potatoes." Derek shrugged as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "Mom and dad are still good friends, but she remarried and now they, ironically enough, live on a potato farm in Iowa."

Pippin raised an eyebrow. And she thought _her_childhood was tough, living with the constant torment of children calling her Hobbit and Furry Foot. At least her father had never cheated on her mother with a dragqueen sporting a fetish for lumpy vegetables. Was a potato a vegetable? Or was it sort of like a banana, the hermaphrodite of the food world? She made a note on her legal pad to look that up later.

"And what about your upbringing? Just in general, who of your siblings were you closest too, did you have trouble in school...that sort of thing."

"I grew up here in Seattle." Derek began, wiping some crumbs from her shirt and leaning back on the chair "Since Joel and Jenna always had that whole twin thing, I was closest with Bo, who was three years younger than me. Mom and dad were never really 'close' so we didn't have to see them make googley eyes at each other." He paused "I didn't really have much trouble in school. In fact, I think my entire childhood was pretty in the norm as far as things to talk about in therapy go. Nothing really started to go weird until I met Addison."

"How did you meet her?"

"Oh, you know. A friend of mine introduced us in college. We got married, had some good times and then divorced because I was still desperately in love with a one night stand I had a year ago. And then my dog died."

"Riiiiight." Pip said, not looking up from where she was doodling a picture of a potato in a skirt "So back on the topic of Meredith. How's that going? Any changes since we last met up?"

"I think I might like another girl."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Her name is Rose and I was going to ask her out...but then..."

"...then...?"

"Well, I guess this is the part where I could use a therapist's opinion. We kissed and then Meredith came up and told me that she didn't want me seeing anybody else. As you can imagine, it's just a little bit confusing." He babbled, looking up at Pippin with large, baffled eyes.

"Well, obviously the healthiest choice _mentally_ would be for you to date Rose in an effort to move on from your emotionally stunting relationship with Meredith." She paused, taking a sip of her Irish coffee. That had to be the most psychoanalytical she had ever been with a patient. Looking up, she noted Derek's hardened expression "...but judging by the way you're looking at me right now I'm going to say wait a little longer. Keep building a friendship with Rose in case she doesn't come around. But I'm going to say, Derek, that this is _extremely _unhealthy in the worst possible way." _Smooth, Pip, just point out the obvious in a complicated and therapist-ish way. That'll catch the brain surgeon off guard!_

"Smooth, doctor. Just point out the obvious in a complicated and therapist-ish way. That'll catch me off guard."

_So now he's a sexy neurosurgeon who can also read my mind. That's just DANDY... _ "I apologize, Derek. Just saying what needs to be said."

"Yeah, I guess I can understand that." His eyes flitted up to the clock "Look's like it's been an hour." Pippin glanced over her shoulder.

"Looks like. It was good seeing you, Derek. Just like last week, call up Christie and I'll see you on your next appointment." He shook her hand and walked to the door. "Wait a minute-I have to know. What's in these muffins?"

"One part talent, one part relationship angst and one part used needles from the hospital biohazard bin."

"You're joking about the syringes, right?"

Derek shrugged, backing out the door "I guess it's going to remain a mystery." As the threshold swung shut behind him, Pip regarded the blueberry muffin in her hand for a moment before shrugging and taking a bite.

"So worth it."


End file.
